Refocusing: A Plea for the Church of Christ
I know every church of Christ is different so this may not apply to your church so take this as you like. I love the Churches of Christ and heritage. Like any family there there are things that can be done to make that heritage more rich, and meaningful. Something in a heritage that maybe not so proud of but we can learn from and move on and not focus on.
Is it time to for the Church of Christ as a whole to refocus? I believe it is time to get the focus off of Self and back on to Christ, the Word, and Evangelism. Let's get rid of trying to be right with opinions and be Biblical. Let's get rid of the terms liberal and conservative strive to be Biblical. Let's get the focus off of self (of how to do worship, how to do communion, what version to use, and and on and on...) and focus our hearts and eyes upon Jesus and Him crucified, remembering that it is His church; bought with the highest price. Let's look beyond the past, and press on toward the future equipping His church for service. Let's agree on the essential doctrines of salvation(Belief in Jesus is son of God, Confession, Repentance, Baptism, Commitment to Jesus as a disciple). Let's refocus on the lost and understand that with God nothing is impossible.
What do you think?
Share your thoughts.
posted by preacherman @ 9:25:00 AM
29 Comments:
Sounds good to me! (o;
Let's refocus on loving God and our neighbor (Matt 22:37-40)--first the neighbor inside the church, then the neighbor outside (Gal 6:10)
Let's refocus on character issues instead of majoring in technical intellectual understanding. (Eph 4-6, Col 3-4, etc)
Let's refocus on loving one another (John 13:34) The most evangelistic thing a Christian or a church can do is to be reconciled with, united with, and to love everyone God has already adopted as a son.
Lisa thanks for stopping by and adding you thoughts. :-) I like it. :-)
I'm with you.
Ya know, I've recently stopped debating very much about Scriptures and stuff like that. Because I realized that it was becoming more about whether I was right than about Christ. It became all about how educated I was. Is this really what Christ wants?
Alan,
I agree we must put major focus on the 1st and 2nd greatest commandments. Without love all of our efforts of change and moving forward are hopeless. And the greatest of these is love. (1Cor 13 and basically the entire book of first John tells us about how important loving God, eachother and neighbor is as Sons). Love is a must! I believe this should be stressed in equipping our members for service.
Yes, charater issues of how to be disciples of Christ in a world that is lost. I believe in the past we maybe we have failed to make disciples. We have baptized and we have marked down numbers in the books only to see brothers and sisters slip through with no follow up. We must make disciples of Jesus by building up character in a world without any.
Yes, the world will know we are "true" disciples by our love.
I appreciate your comments and adding to this discussion and plea.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Josh,
I appreciate your comment. I can undstand your point. Let's strive to Biblical and do His will in saving the lost.
I like what Josh said too. I've recently become discouraged by so much debate on the Scriptures, on things that aren't even specified IN the Scriptures! Not that they don't have their place, and that we should know the Scriptures -- it is just frustrating to be wasting time arguing about who knows more when there are so many who need us to teach them the basics first. Just my thoughts.
"Amen" to what everyone has said so far. Great synopsis from Alan as to what we should be about.
Unfortunately we've spent all our time debating, learning and studying about false doctrine. We've become a people that no more about false doctrine than we do the Bible.
I agree with ya.
The difficult thing is that change is in the air and some of the traditionalist will not let go of just that- tradition. “We did it this way so it must be right.” Some of the changers want a whole new look and sound and they want to steam roll it in. It’s when we let God take the lead and stop acting like children that the CoCs will be what He wants us to be.
Some times our "basics" are not the basics of the biblical narrative. Unity is a basic impulse of the biblical story. Redemption and Sabbath are fundamental themes that tie the Scriptures together. Holiness is a fundamental trait of Yahweh ... and his people. The People of God as a light to the nations is part of the story since Gen 12.
Kenny I agree we need to refocus. We need to refocus onto the Story of God working in and through his people to bring about the new creation.
Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
Milly,
I agree. You look at the Isrealites not waiting on God's and following Him and it cost them 40 years in the deseart and Moses not entering the Promise land. We must take His lead. Follow Him and keep in step with the Spirit. (Gal 5:25 "Since we livee by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.")
Thank you for adding to the discussion.
Bobby,
You are so right on. I agree that sometimes the basics aren't even the basics but matters of oppinions. We must strive for unity. Strive to be Holy (1 Peter 1:15; Eph 5:1-2). I totally agree with you brother and that you so very much for adding your wisdom to this discussion.
Wade,
Thanks for the Amen!
Trey,
Do you mean matters of oppinion as false doctrine?
I am with you---when we focus on earthly junk rather that spiritual blessings,we get bogged down.
Peace
Neva
Far too long our theology and mission have been "correctional" at the expense of not being "redemptive". We get 0 points for being right. As Brian Mashburn said recently, "theology is good but it will never love us back, only Jesus can do that"
If we as a movement would start preaching Christ, and stop preaching the church of Christ, we would likely make more headway in kingdom business. There is not one verse of scripture that gives validity to much of what we have been focused on in the past.
Grace to you,
Royce Ogle
Royce,
Amen. We must remember to preach Christ and if we do that God will be glorified.
Kenny, we just finished a great campaign with students from Heritage Christian. It was great to be so focused on evangelism and nothing else for a week. Unfortunately our follow up is not producing much fruit. So many appeared to be interested only to discover later that they are not really. But we keep trying because who knows what person is out there seriously looking for Jesus.
We have just begun a study in Acts... the first 8 verses last week and we talked about Jesus and how he refocuses the disciples on last time before he heads home.
Jesus is eating with them and he tells them to stay in Jerusalem until the gift comes. And they ask him are you going to restore the kingdom?
And he refocuses them again. It's about being my witness to the lost... here and beyond.
Sometimes I think we are trying to restore "our kingdom, our preferred form of the church,
"the way it should be.""
And I think Jesus says... focus on what I'm calling you to, what I've prepared you for... being my witness. I'll give you the power, you go."
Bob,
I believe if you and your congregation keep that focus on Christ and the lost. You will be bless in a powerful way. "Seek ye first his kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well."
Steve,
Amen. I believe it is not the form but the function of the church that we need to restore. In doing so we will save the lost.
Don't worry 'bout being busy. I'm busy a lot now.
Hey have you been to THE VAULT yet? Online freedom to confess whatever you'd like anonymously.
I think if we could focus on Christ...and accept others that are trying to follow Christ, rather than spending all of our time trying to prove we are right and they are wrong...we might recapture what I once loved.
In my area though, I find that is not the case...so for the time being at least, I am looking for the family of God elsewhere.
You had me at the word "refocus."
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